Welcome to NGM.com's new look. Today we're unveiling a makeover as well as launching some exciting new features.

The thought behind our new design was to create the best environment to showcase the magazine's famous photography. So we enlarged the canvas and dramatically simplified the graphics, aiming to reflect the elegant and arresting design of the printed magazine. We wanted the content to speak for itself.

Our changes aren't just superficial. We've modernized our website, creating a more dynamic, user-focused structure rich in both imagery and information. It's a smarter, faster site that, while closely tracking the monthly feature stories of the magazine, has found ways to animate and expand those stories with an abundance of multimedia and other tools. Just as important, we've rebuilt the website to scale up for rapid growth.

Over the coming months we'll be adding even more for you to enjoy, converting past feature stories and expanding existing photo galleries, multimedia files, and interactive tools. Like every renovation, the process can be a bit messy, so should you run into any digital debris, please pardon our construction.

Why are we kicking up all this dust? To expand your opportunities to participate. We'll be hosting your ongoing discussions and collecting your best work to share with a fast-growing audience worldwide.

We'd like to hear what you think of our handiwork, as well as any ideas you have to make our website more engaging and reflective of your most passionate interests.

So on to what's new:

GeoPedia

Our new website design launches a companion to our magazine feature stories called GeoPedia. Each GeoPedia entry, created by the magazine's heralded research staff, provides in-depth background content on a given topic.  A wise researcher (David Wooddell), who's been instrumental in getting this effort off the ground, said to me when we were kicking this idea around, "Researchers all know that the narrative line of a magazine feature story has a way of chasing out the facts." We decided to create a home for the facts.

Each GeoPedia entry provides a bibliography and an extensive set of links on the topic for those interested in digging deeper. We've been publishing a page called Learn More on this website for years. Think of GeoPedia as a live Learn More. 

What GeoPedia is not is an open wiki. Soon, you'll be able to ask a question of our experts, share a link, or contribute information of your own. Preselected experts (you could become one) will review all contributions submitted by the wider community, and only they can hit the "publish" button. Our hope is that by vetting all material, we'll maintain National Geographic's vaunted standards of quality and accuracy.

The topics of the first GeoPedia entries, from the March 2008 issue, include animal minds, the changing role of the monarchy in Bhutan, and the distinctive geography of Iceland. Going back to the previous few months, the entries run the gamut from the Ajanta caves of India to volcano culture in Indonesia, with American chestnut trees, albatrosses, Bethlehem, cowboy culture, dinosaurs, e-waste, gorillas, the high plains, the "ice warriors" on Nanga Parbat, permafrost, and recycling some of the topics you'll find in between.

What is our goal with GeoPedia? Two goals, really. First, we hope that our members and the larger world will find this new tool helpful and that we can tap into your passion on different subjects to enrich what we've already put in place. We definitely need your help in growing this resource. For instance, the e-waste entry gives a paragraph-long description of five key poisons coming out of our computers. Where we have about 75 words on beryllium, we could easily have a page or two. And the same goes for dinosaurs and Bethlehem.

Our second goal is to maintain the high National Geographic magazine standard of accuracy as we grow. Most high schools and colleges reject Wikipedia as a resource. We aim to be the trusted source on every topic we cover.

If you're an expert, please join in. If you have a question, send it along and give us a chance to answer, or send us a link we should know about. And if you'd like to comment on the GeoPedia feature, write me in this space.

Video Hub
We're also launching a new hub page for video so that you can view the magazine's video collection in one centralized spot. We've gathered more than 150 videos from our archive for you to enjoy. And we'll be adding to our collection regularly, as our reporters and photographers expand their use of video as a reporting tool. Check it out here.

Map of the Day
This recent addition is one I'm particularly fond of. Map of the Day is a fun feature that connects historical maps with today's events and milestones. Check out the day's map here. Now you can also scroll through and explore 20 high-resolution maps from the pages of the eighth edition of the National Geographic Atlas of the World. Check out the Atlas Explorer and, while you're at it, you might want to try putting together a map puzzle, also based on the eighth edition of the atlas.

Our Shot
Each weekday our photo editors post a selection of current and recent fieldwork by National Geographic's world-renowned photographers. Think of it as a preview of what's to come.

Widgets
For the techno prone, we now offer two recently launched widgets: one for each day's Daily Dozen selection and the other for the new daily Our Shot image. Both can be placed on social networking sites such as Facebook, iGoogle, or MySpace. Stay tuned for more new widgets coming out later this month.

Your Shot/Animal Minds
In conjunction with this month's cover story on smart animals, we're asking you to send us photos and stories of your smart pets. Check out the first few that have come through here. Send us yours today.

Your Shot Voting Machine
We're in month number four of online voting for your favorite images selected by Your Shot editor Susan Welchman. What's new is that you can now vote on each Daily Dozen selection (only vote once for each photo). The highest-scoring image will appear in the pages of National Geographic magazine. Vote now.

Your Shot Puzzles Hub
We've put our thousand-plus puzzles (yes we do have more than a thousand puzzles online) into a new and easy-to-navigate hub so that you can now sort by type of puzzle: landscape, animal, etc.

NGM Blogs
We've launched a wide variety of NGM blogs. Three are photo-related, while the others range from the elements of writing style (Roger's Rules of Order) to archaeology (Stones, Bones 'n Things). Sample each on the Blog Central home page.

Newsletters
Signing up for one of our two monthly newsletters is a great way to keep in touch with all the exciting things we have going on. Photo of the Month and Your Shot will keep you up-to-date on everything that's new and exciting on NGM.com.

I hope you like the changes we've made and that you'll decide to come back often.
I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Rob Covey
Managing Editor/Creative Director
NGM.com